Tipping the guide
 

Hi everyone,

We are leaving for Egypt in 10 days and I wanted to find out a little more about the tipping policy. We're going with Lady Egypt tours for 2 weeks; do we tip at the end of each day or at the end of the trip and more importatnly, how much do you normally tip?

Thanks.

There are many threads here on Fodor's re tipping. Do a search. Tipping/gratuities, always depends on quality of service. Still you tip the guide at the conclusion of his/her services, whether for a day or a few.

You don't indicate whether you have a single guide throughout, in Cairo and on Nile cruise (if taking one) or elsewhere. If only in Cairo, then at the end of the two or three days here. If same guide on cruise, then at conclusion of service. If using the Nile Cruise guide, likewise, tip him/her at the conclusion of the days guiding at shore temples/sites (can be anywhere from 3-7/days).

Don't forget hotel staff - porters/housekeeping; if on cruise, also porters, housekeeping, waiters, kitchen - often this is a shared tip with lock-box at boat reception.

You should've received a tipping guide sheet from LE. If not then you should ask Amanda about it before your trip. When you arrive in Egypt, your tour rep there will also give you an information packet. I believe that has a tipping guide sheet in there also.

If a guide or driver will be with you for multiple days then it's ok to tip each at the end of your trip. Do check with them as to how long they'll be with you when you first meet them. The tour rep usually only see you when you first arrive and then when you leave the city or country.

Remember all the time that what ever they give you is a "GUIDE" not the law. You can choose to go higher or lower depending on the service you feel you got from the guide.

Another thing to remember, is that IF you shop with them when they take you to a Carpet School, Perfume Shop, Papyrus Factory/Museum, or Gold store that they are taking a huge amount of your purchase price as a commission. Your guide does not take all of it, the company takes a fair share, but keep in mind that if you buy a $3000 carpet, or a $300 piece of papyrus, your guide has been tipped VERY well at that point.

It doesn't just happen in Egypt. If you bought wine in Italy on tour, or wooden shoes/cheese in Holland, the same thing was going on. ;)

I am actually in the middle of a two day private tour of Cairo with LE. We did not get any tipping recommendations from Amanda prior to the trip, but the tour leader gave me recommendations on the way to the hotel. He said the driver gets at least 50LE a day, the Egyptologist 100-150LE a day, and he (as tour operator) gets 100-150LE a day. These guidelines seem to be double what my Fodor searches on this topic yield. I actually am not too opposed with following their guidelines and possibly overtipping the guide and driver, but I am not sure what the tour leader does to warrant the same tip as the Egyptologist? The tour leader greeted us at the airport and joined our ride to the hotel, and then left once we met the guide. He shows up again at the end of our tour, presumably to collect his tip. Am I wrong to tip him considerably less (50-100LE) even though he's told me what he expects?

Like CC mentioned, the tour rep give you a tipping guide. If you think the tour rep should only get 50LE then you should feel fine to give that. I sometimes feel the same way as you regarding the role of the tour rep. On some part of my trip, I met the tour rep a few minutes when I arrive and then only see him again a few minutes when it's time to leave the town.

I wish I still have the tip sheet that LE gave me. I think it was in the welcoming packet.

When I was in Egypt in March, the tipping guide was more along the line of the following:
guide: 50 LE/day/person
driver: 10 LE/day
tour rep: 20 LE
bathroom stop: 1 LE

I give the driver more if he has to get up very early or drive me a long distance between towns, etc. I also tip the guide much more if I think he's very good.

October is a high travel season for Egypt? Maybe that has a effect of the price of everything.

I am getting ready to leave on a LE tour next week, and I, too, am puzzled. The tipping guide Amanda emailed me is roughly comparable to what Axel2DP mentions above. It is (per person):
tour rep 20-50 LE total at end of the time in the city
guide 50-100 LE per day
driver 10 LE per day
cruise staff 10-20 LE per night on board.
Would appreciate advice about whether these seem appropriate guidelines, per person, for two people.

I'm always the negative voice here on this subject, but so be it. We had a private tour with LE a couple of years ago, and there is no way (even though our guide was excellent) that I was tipping $60.00 per day --- I just find that ridiculously high.

I just returned from Egypt & Jordan with Lady Egypt. Our Rep was Ahmed and he was so friendly and great that I gave him 200 LE the first day I saw him just as an "introductory thank you". Whether or not he thought this was a sign of things to come and so went the extra mile I dont know. He did a magnificent job. We were upgraded to a suite at half the hotels we stayed at, including the Mariott Dead Sea. We were given flowers & fruit baskets in many rooms. At one restaurant, we were seated and he disappeared and returned a few minutes later and said he asked for us to have a better seat near the floor show. We tipped him accordingly at the end.

I liked our driver Mamoud too. He was young and married, so I figured he needed money. He was due to pick us up after our Jordan trip, however, someone ran in to his Lady Egypt car in the car park and it had to be towed so we got a hire car home with our rep. At the airport after the car was towed, Mamoud came over to us smiling and saying he was ok (in his limited English). I was worried that he would miss a day's pay as he didn't drive us so I put some money in to an envelope to give our Rep to give to him to explain what it was for, however, we were lucky enough to have Mamoud one more time so we could give it to him. He said "la, la la" telling me he wouldn't accept the tip. I pushed the money into his hand and closed his fist around the money - probably very inappropriate ettiquite for a western woman and Egyptian man - but I didn't care!

When you tip people I think you're supposed to discretely put the folded money in his hand.

10 LE for a driver is minimal and should probably only apply when there are at least 5 people in the van...so he is getting a good 50LE for the days driving. Simply 10LE would be less than $2 if you are the only passenger..... not much at all.

IMHO anyway.

LE150 for the guy that greats you and sees you to your hotel and then sees you off to the airport at the end is generous.

Casual Cairo (or anyone who is knowledgeable about this), does this seem about right for the tip per person for two people on a tour (with the possibility of more than that for great service??
tour rep 20-50 LE
guide 50-100 LE per day
driver 10 LE per day
cruise staff 10-20 LE per night on board.

To me 20LE per day for tipping a driver seems like WAY too little. That is like less than $4. The minimum you are going to give your guide per day is $10 and you want to give the driver less than $4? Maybe he doesn't have as much education (but don't assume that around here - my guide has a college degree) and sure, he didn't talk to you as much, but he was up hours before you and the guide to clean the car from yesterday, and he is mostly awake the whole day and his driving is what keeps you safe. He will watch after your bags and whatnot all day long so you don't have to worry about carrying them with you all the time, so now he is more than a driver, he is a driver, a carwash, a security man and probably a translator for you, now and again and he gets less than $4 for a tip. Drivers work hard and if he is friendly and not a big grump, give him $10 for all he does for you.

Thank you! I hadn't gotten around yet to converting LE to dollars, so didn't realize how little this was. Do the tips I listed above for guide and tour rep seem reasonable?

We also are traveling with Lady Egypt this November. I asked Amanda whether we can tip in US dollars or LE and she said either one is acceptable. Thoughts on this?

I am all for giving what you can rather than the minimum of what is acceptable. wages are low. be kind.

I think it's better to tip in the local currency when possible.

I admit that it's not always instinctive to do dollar conversion when travelling in a foreign land. 100 LE is not the same as 100 US dollars, but when I hear 100 LE I would immediately focus only on the 100.

So long as the bills you hand to them are clean (not torn or written on) they can exchange them at the bank, but if you can tip in EGP it saves them the hassle and any grief a banker that thinks he is better than a driver exchanging a few dollars, wants to dish out.

NEVER use coins - except Egyptian coins, for a tip. THEY CAN NOT exchange them and they sit around begging people to do the exchange for them on site which most people don't like very much.

On the otherhand, when a shister at the pyramids asks for 1 EURO for a necklace that is worth 20cents, give him a coin if you really want it. It serves him right for asking for 1 EURO. I'm mean. I won't exchange their coins, but if a bathroom lady shows me 30EUR in coins she has recieved, I'll change her coins for EGP every day. The shisters I'm not too sympathedic with.

Thank you for all the comments guys. This is extremely helpful.

Bookmarking

Has anyone ever hired a tour guide through Lady Egypt or otherwise for just a day or two of touring (for example, just in Cairo/Giza). Are guides available for a daily rate, and if so, what is the approximate daily rate for a guide?

My wife and I will be traveling through the country and do not want a completely guided trip, just guides during certain portions.

Bookmarking

We are travelling as a group-4 adults and 2 kids. Do we follow the LE rules on the sheet provided per person per day or will we have the chance to prepay all the tips?

Not clear - we were given the option (which we took, by the way) of prepaying all the tips (we were also 6 people -- us and 4 young adults), but others have said they were not given the same option.

Gred. I had a tour booked but had some extra days where we could just do what we wanted. I elected to have a guide and driver available which cost about US70 for the day plus my tip.

Question. Lady Egypt recommends tipping 50-100 LE per person per day for guides. What if we are only taking a half day tour? How about driver from airport to hotel?

If it was me, I would apply the same tipping recommendations to the half day tour as well. I wouldn't cut it in half.

I agree with Axel2DP - tip the same amount. But, that's me.

I tipped the same no matter how long someone was with us. For some short airport trips, e.g. Luxor hotel to airport. I guess the ones that with with us a short time got lucky but I thought that perhaps as they had driven me that morning for 20 mins or half an hour they might not be able to get another job for the day.

I tipped our driver for the day that he attempted to pick us up at the airport but the car was hit in the Cairo Airport car park and was completely out of action. We had to catch a cab home with our rep and he caught a bus back to the Lady Egypt office to report it. I felt sorry for him that through no fault of his own he could not drive us and probably wouldn't of gotten paid

I am genuinely confused here. I see a tip as a personal gesture about service given and yet it seems there are set "fees" and expectations for this.
As an example - if 10-20LE is way to little for the driver, what about the actual fee for his service he will get from whoever is paid for the tour/trip/excursion in the first place?

Please don't see this as a "flame" post - I genuinely want to get a better understanding.
Thanks.

I am confused here also. It seems to me that when I pay for a driver and a guide thru a tour company, they should receive a good and fair wage from the payment I made for the tour. When handing out tips, I would keep in mind the wages of a teacher in Egypt are said to be 50LE for a full day. So if I tip a driver equal the daily wage for a teacher and he also receives a wage, there surely will not be any men willing to teach. They will all be drivers.

Maybe they are not paid by a tour company. If so, then I should hire them myself and make sure they are paid.

The last two posters are right on about WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN and all that can be said is WELCOME TO EGYPT. They are not as well paid as you might hope by the owners of their companies.

Teachers might make 50LE a day, but NO ONE much can live in the city on that little. Teachers all work all nights and all weekend hours during the school year tutoring students to make ends meet. They also will take bribes to pass students that maybe should't otherwise pass. It is all in an effort to survive the high cost of living.

The driver is not making much money for his actual service of driving unless he takes you to Carpet Schools, Alabaster Factories, Papyrus Museums or Gold shops that will pay him a fee just for stopping with you. Some shops pay the drivers more for certain Nationalities because they know Americans spend more money than Japanese (for example).
Remember too that a drivers job is not something he is guaranteed to have year after year after year, like a teacher, or (in Egypt) any government job. This month he may make a lot of money, but last June, July and August he may have only worked 5 days all month. If another 9/11 happens anywhere in the world, his job is gone. People working in the tourist business are always at risk to be out of work tomorrow.

You are right on about looking around and seeing what service you got from the driver. If he is driving a bus and all 50 passengers give him a dollar each - he does quite alright. If he is working with 2-5 of you, then a bit more might be required for the priveledge of having had a private tour. It should always be up to you though. Don't give tips you don't think were earned - ever! Even if LE or someone else tells you to. Give them happily, or don't give them.
As my private driver says - Even if money is nice, our best tip is a happy customer - one that won't stop talking about how much fun s/he had and how we helped them have a great time.

wigwam - I think you are seeing this as "set fees" because in the business we are ALWAYS being asked "what should we tip". It's an uncomfortable question to be asked because if we answer it, it seems as are asking for tips. Instead some agencies have come up with "guidelines" if you will, to help. It can be miscontrued to be fees to add on, but probably wasn't meant to be that when the list was made up.

I agree with everything Casual_Cairo said - especially the parts about how the teachers supplement their income and how the drivers are not necessarily paid as well as you might think.

The tips quoted by tour operators are not set fees, they are guidelines (why is the "Pirates of the Carribbean" movie playing in my head????), but they are what the people in Egypt count on to make a decent living.

I have never been on a tour like these, so I have never had to deal with suggested/recommended tips, but if I were.....

If I got basic, nothing special service - I would pay the minimum suggested.
If I got good service - I would pay between the middle and high end of the suggested amount.
If I got really good service - I would pay the highest amount, and then probably add on a little extra.

Also, IF I had been in this situation, I would have been traveling with children - and I guarantee that I would be extra generous with tips to the people (drivers, guides, cruise staff, whoever) who made it a point to make sure my children were well taken care of.

<<Teachers might make 50LE a day, but NO ONE much can live in the city on that little. Teachers all work all nights and all weekend hours during the school year tutoring students to make ends meet. They also will take bribes to pass students that maybe should't otherwise pass. It is all in an effort to survive the high cost of living.>>

Oh - and this doesn't just happen in Egypt!!!!!

thank you both and C_C I do understand your point about repeated requests for advice.
but to use grcxx3 comments as an example:
if one got just the basic service why would/should you pay ANY tip at all over the pre-agreed fee for service?
I do understand the "welcome to Egypt" and have been to arabia and the indian subcontinent plenty of types beset by demands for "baksheesh" esp in arab hotels, but it is the suggestion or implication that the "tip" is effectively obligatory that sits a little uneasy with me - especially when I read of these tour operators or camel-owners/drivers at times humiliating tourists by handing back tips given in good faith as insultingly small.

<<if one got just the basic service why would/should you pay ANY tip at all over the pre-agreed fee for service>>

To me, I would still pay a minimum tip because (especially in places like Egypt) I can't be sure what the driver/guide (whoever) is being paid by the company - if anything. It would not surprise me if some of these individuals survived solely on tips.

Besides, as Casual_Cairo said - many of these people get money from the alabaster, papyrus, perfume, rug, etc shops, so if I choose NOT to go to one of those places, then I am happy to give a little extra in exchange for the extra time to do what I want and for NOT getting a pressured sales pitch! :)

I guess I look at this as I look at tipping a waiter/waitress. I know that people in the food service industry rely heavily on tips, so even basic service gets about 10% from me. I never leave no tip - unless the service has been really poor and then only if I am willing to complete a comment card or speak to the manager.

Having just returned Casual Cairo is correct. You also get what you pay for. I had a special interest that required running around town and I was happy to tip the driver well as he always dropped me within feet of where I wanted to be and returned on time for picking me back up. His basic day charge was reasonable and because of his service which did make my trip better and easier I tipped well.

And I learned to cross the street!

Thanks CC for the info on the book market which lead me to other dealers.